Block the industrial chain step by step.
The EDA supply in the United States is cut off, so that Chinese mainland has no tools to design high-end chips of 3nm and below, with the design card at 5nm and the manufacturing card at 7nm. Then open the distance between China and the United States in high-speed computing and AI. Hong Shibin, an industry observer, told beijing business today Today.
It is understood that EDA is an indispensable part of integrated circuit design and an advanced form of widely used technology. It belongs to the upstream industry of chip manufacturing and covers all processes of integrated circuit design, wiring, verification and simulation. EDA is called the mother of chips in the industry.
At present, EDA software in the world is mainly monopolized by three American companies: Cadence, Synopsys and Mentor. The Big Three firmly occupy more than 70% of the global market share, and can provide complete EDA tools, covering all or most of the processes of integrated circuit design and manufacturing.
According to Hong Shibin, the whole chip industry chain includes initial design, manufacturing, packaging and testing. Domestic chip design companies, such as Huawei Hisilicon and ZTE Microelectronics, have reached the top level in the world, but they have always had great shortcomings in EDA software, even worse than domestic chip manufacturing and packaging testing.
According to the data released by the EDA Industry Development Sub-forum of the World Semiconductor Conference, taking the data of 20 19 as an example, the global EDA software market size is 1025 million US dollars, while the China EDA market size is 580 million US dollars, accounting for only 5.6% of the global market, of which the revenue of domestic EDA manufacturers is only 420 million RMB, accounting for only about 0.6% of the global market share.
Earlier, the US government directly threw out $52.7 billion and passed the chip bill. The Chip Act lists some provisions, and enterprises subsidized by the United States are prohibited from expanding production and investing in more advanced chips in Chinese mainland within 10 years. In addition, the US government will increase investment in relevant institutions to promote scientific research, but universities that have educational cooperation with Chinese mainland are prohibited from obtaining research funds.
The rise of EDA in China has a long way to go.
Beijing business today reporter found today that from the development history of domestic ed a software, from 1980s to 1990s, Chinese enterprises kept marching into the field of EDA software, until 1993, Huada released the first domestic EDA software Panda ICCAD system within 9 days, which achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1.
However, because the core technology of the whole chip industry chain is monopolized by western countries, overseas EDA software giants directly bind chip designers and manufacturers, resulting in foreign manufacturers not adopting domestic EDA software, while the domestic chip manufacturing level is still at the level of 14nm, and it is impossible to seek greater technological breakthroughs.
If you design a 5nm chip product and use the world's top EDA software, the cost can be controlled at about 40 million US dollars, but without the support of EDA software, the cost of designing a 5nm chip may be as high as 7.7 billion US dollars, which is close to the gap of about 200 times. The relevant person in charge of a domestic CAD software company calculated an account for beijing business today reporter.
Once the United States stops supplying EDA software, it will definitely seriously affect the design ability of domestic chip companies in a short time, but domestic EDA software will rise completely. Zhao Kang, head of the operator's financial network, said that there is only one way to ban in the United States, and that is to improve the level of domestic EDA software. This is not insurmountable, but domestic enterprises should unite, and even Huawei Hisilicon and domestic universities should participate, form alliances and develop together, so that the process will be accelerated.
In the field of EDA software, the domestic policy layout has also been fully launched. For example, the Outline of the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China and the Outline of Vision 2035 clearly list integrated circuits as the third place to tackle key problems in seven frontier fields of science and technology, and EDA as the first place to tackle key problems of integrated circuits.
Chip freedom opportunities under pressure
At present, China is at a disadvantage in the fields of logic chip, memory chip and analog chip. In the above three areas, American companies are undoubtedly the dominant players. If China wants to achieve self-sufficiency in the field of chips, it is bound to break through the technical blockade and patent wall of the United States, and it is inevitable to enter the dragon.
But in the short term, China's chip industry chain is under great pressure. According to the data of ICInsights and China Customs, in 2020, the chip market demand in China will be as high as $654.38+043.4 billion; Among them, all chip manufacturing enterprises in China (including foreign-funded factories) can supply only $22.7 billion, and the self-sufficiency rate is only 15.9%. If foreign chip factories are excluded, only the production capacity of domestic pure mainland enterprises will be counted. In 2020, the production capacity will be about 8.3 billion US dollars, and the self-sufficiency rate will be as low as 5.9%.
But under pressure, China is not without opportunities. Xu Yiqiang, an industry observer, said that it is not easy for the United States to maintain a sustainable advantage for a long time. The semiconductor industry needs a lot of talents, labor, energy and logistics, but there is a big gap in these areas in the United States. Besides, China is the largest chip market in the world, and semiconductor manufacturers can make money in China. Because capital is profit-seeking, it is not easy for the United States to regain its industrial hegemony.
A study pointed out that if the United States wants to establish a complete industrial chain from upstream to downstream locally, the initial investment needs at least 1 trillion dollars. It must be said that $52.7 billion is just a drop in the bucket for the whole chip industry chain.
Since the ZTE and Huawei incidents, the domestic chip industry is in full swing. In more than two years, there are more than 65,438+million new chip enterprises in China. It is reported that in the past four quarters, 19 of the top 20 chip companies in the world came from mainland China.
In addition, the Yangtze River Delta with Shanghai as the center has become the largest chip base in China, covering all chip manufacturing processes from beginning to end. In the future, it will reach the market scale of 654.38+000 billion yuan in 2025.
Xu Yiqiang said that the core of chip self-sufficiency lies in chip manufacturing and its key equipment, cutting-edge materials and core processes. Only on the basis of the rise of the whole chip industry can China achieve complete chip self-sufficiency, and chip freedom can't rely on a little breakthrough, which requires overall planning and comprehensive breakthrough.
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